An Obol For Charon

DVD, Discovery S2 (An Obol For Charon)

Not as annoying as it first seemed, but I can't say I liked the episode, either. Strange when you consider this was another one that was quite true to the Trek ethos. It has a Trek structure of A and B plots, a non-humanoid encounter in both, and a solution that is nonviolent. Just what is it that turns me away from this series so much? It doesn't help that I don't really, genuinely like any of the characters. They're all so readily emotional and lacking in the kind of organised professionalism and restraint that I associate with this universe. The casual way they address each other, the non-regulation attitudes, lack of seriousness and informal manner of speaking grates on me so I don't respect them. And when the characters fall apart there is really nothing left in a series as they are the heart of everything. Take Reno, the Chief Engineer of the Hiawatha who is still, inexplicably, aboard Discovery - she and Stamets immediately start laying into each other and it's not what I want to see. All this 'witty' points scoring and standoffishness, but where's the Starfleet brotherhood and emphasis on service? Everyone has an attitude, it seems, and they all have to express their 'personalities.' If this was the sixth season and they'd all been through so much I might be able to take their shorthanded populist manner of speaking, but we're so early in the series and everything is sped up and ignited with little room for growth or chance to earn anything and to me that is the antithesis of Trek.

There is some growth in the shape of Saru's experience with the space creature 'evolving' him out of his people's traditional fearful role in the eco-structure of his world, Kaminar - it sets the Vahar'ai into motion, which is what kills his people, but that doesn't make a lot of sense when we've constantly been hearing that his species is the prey, and the predator species (the Ba'ul as he says here), hunt them down. But if they automatically die at a certain point then why would the Ba'ul hunt them? They'd be more like vultures picking off carcasses, so that isn't true to the little we'd already heard. I also didn't see the logic to his thought that his people have been living a lie, just because he's gone through this Vahar'ai and hasn't died - he loses his threat ganglia (so hopefully no more sensing the coming of death and other fantasy notions!), which means he's no longer afraid and feels the inherent physical power he's possessed of. And no Kelpien ever felt that? It's the usual case with these writers that they don't have a clue how to develop an alien species. They're doing their best, but they're fundamentally flawed. I'll give them the makeup, though. That was pretty good, with bare-chested Saru showing off his bone structure in much the same way as Worf's brother, Kurn, did in a similar scene of assisted suicide. That was something else I was uncomfortable with: Saru just staggers off the Bridge with Burnham (what happened to the intra-ship beaming used so frequently before? Now he's dying and they won't let him beam to his Quarters?), and rather than Sickbay they head to his Quarters so she can finish him off!

Clearly Burnham doesn't want to do this traumatic and immoral thing, and it's a good thing she does hesitate or Saru might well have died! It could be seen as an indictment of euthanasia, just like that scene in 'Star Trek V' when Dr. McCoy relives the death of his Father and admits that if he hadn't assisted in his death he'd have been cured shortly afterwards, but the way it's so calmly almost carried out was chilling. Saru wants to avoid the pain and madness he anticipates coming, but Burnham would never have forgiven herself if she'd realised he died needlessly, and even worse, what about the whole Kelpien race that would have gone on living as they did without Saru there to show them another way? I wanted more information on Saru's escape from the planet because we hear he was a refugee and was saved, but little else. His people are under the Prime Directive (or General Order One as it was properly called at this time, and I appreciate the adherence to that), so they don't have warp drive, but Saru got away and is the only one to do that (a bit like Kes, then!), and they let him know all about the Federation and even join Starfleet. Too many gaps and lack of explanation, without the impression they have a direction they're going in and will stick to.

I was so relieved the space creature wasn't the Doomsday Machine, as that's what it looked like on first glimpse. I thought they were going to ruin more Trek lore, but no. We've seen creatures passing on vast databases of information before, though I can't remember when ('Voyager' did one, I'm sure, and probably 'TNG'), so it is a very Trekky course to take. I liked that Saru recognised it as a 'last contact' rather than a first, and it is a good, solid idea that this creature snatched them out of warp because it didn't want to die alone and needed to pass on its knowledge and history. That kind of thing is actually moving, but it's only a brief moment in an episode filled with emotional people so it's a little lost in the flood of feelings all over the place. Everyone speaking different languages all of a sudden made a good twist, but even that was a flash in the pan, rushed madly through like a panic, and that's the trouble with the series: it tends to jump from this to that, worried the modern attention span of its audience needs constant stimulation. If you look at a 'DS9' episode like 'Babel' in which the same thing happens, everyone losing the ability to communicate, it's turned into a fascinating mystery where we learn much more about certain characters and how they react to such a situation. The shock is in the sudden nonsense being spouted, but if that was a 'DSC' episode it's blazed through with pounding music and then it's onto the next thing being flung at the audience. Trek used to thrive on ideas and satisfyingly explore them, develop them, but now it's become a mishmash of fireworks exploding all over the place.

One argument made for why modern TV is soooo much better than the old is because you never know who's going to die, but that's not true even now. Of course Saru isn't going to be killed off, any more than Burnham is because they're almost the only two with any development behind them (not a lot, but some), so I never felt concerned for Saru (why were Burnham and Pike helping out in Sickbay, what happened to the doctors and nurses?), and, as always was the case, waited to see how it would be resolved. In fact it was an easy guess that the creature had activated his illness and its death would free him, although I didn't predict that he'd lose his guiding sense of fear and institutional cowardice, so that's something. We finally get to see inside his Quarters where it's all grass and plants, and while it's a nice idea, it's once again very much in a modern mindset that everyone can have their individual needs and wants when in reality serving aboard a starship is about fitting into a mould. There might be an arboretum or a few houseplants, but no one on the original Enterprise would be allowed modified Quarters where they could form it as they will, that's not in the military way! I know they're not military, but they are based on the navy and space (at this time if they were being true to the history), is at a premium. But no, everyone should have things as they want them, that's the attitude of today.

At least we won't be spore jumping any more, or at least I hope not, as we've finally got to the point where we've learned that it's damaging to the mycelial network. The B-story features Stamets, Tilly and Reno trapped in the spore room (no sign of the Chief Engineer - I wonder why he never stopped by like Burnham did, even if he couldn't get inside?), where the mycelial creature escapes and latches onto Tilly again. I get it, it's supposed to show Reno's ability, but also her lack of empathy with people, and I suppose is a reminder of how we first found her with her attitude of patching up the dying and injured being as simple as sticking on some duct tape (would they even have the notion of duct tape in the 23rd Century?), and it's not a boring subplot, but they've done the mycelial stuff to death now and I'd just like to be rid of it. I will say that this is how you should do a serialised series: individual episodes like this that explore the characters while also referencing ongoing events - Spock's dashing about somewhere in a shuttle, which is why they were in this part of space, and they're on their way to intercept him when they get stuck in this situation, though because of the superior sensor data of the creature they haven't lost his trail, so that's nice. Thing is, there's still so much that gets on my nerves, whether it's Tilly handing round chewing gum (seriously, this is the kind of stupid thing I wrote in my own space stories as a child - everyone stop to hand round some sweeties!), her favourite song being a pop song (in old Trek it'd have been a nursery rhyme or something traditional passed down through the ages - give it a rest with the pop music, that won't be remembered in the 23rd Century!), and Burnham, as usual being the most emotional member of the crew (are you sure she was raised by Vulcans, or is this just a reaction to that - she was so emotionally repressed that now she's not it gushes forth at a moment's notice!).

On the other side of the coin it was interesting to meet Number One, supposedly the same character Majel Barrett played in 'The Cage,' though this one is as a street-smart, witty-bantering with the Captain whom she's so familiar with, a far distant cry from the repressed, unemotional, computer-like personality we originally saw. I know that several years have passed, but apart from looking somewhat similar (tall; long hair), she may as well be a different character. It's too early to judge her but yet again it falls into the category of what modern audiences expect to see. None of this respect for authority and a sense of distance between ranks or characters, no, we can't have that, everyone must be familiar, so why bother reusing characters at all, it just inflames people like me! There were a couple of straws to grasp from her appearance - Pike orders her to get the holographic comms system ripped out of the Enterprise (which made me mentally cheer), so they are at least making some small effort at course correction before we go aboard the most famous ship in Trek history (though I'm still not sure it's going to be anything close to what it should be, going by Burnham's little visit recently), and the other was seeing a PADD that looked a lot more like the old-style ones in 'TOS,' a high-tech, chunky clipboard shape. And we hear that Saru's sister was named Siranna which I think was new information.

It's little enough to grip onto and that's the reason it's taken me so long to get back to the series when over Christmas I'd planned to get through a couple of episodes at least. But I just don't enjoy the series and even if it's less painful than some of Season 1, it's still so hard to like. The whole episode could have been full of interest if this were the Voyager crew, or the DS9 one, but even they would have found it hard to fight against the style of editing and dialogue that plagues the series because it has to fit in with modern production techniques that don't serve Trek's traditional stage play format well. The idea that only human, English speakers could communicate with each other might well have been crafted into a fascinating adventure for Starfleet ingenuity to solve (it's evidence of why the kind of buttons and levers on 'TOS' might actually be more reliable since they aren't text based and so the language wouldn't matter), and a story about the malfunction of the Universal Translator is equally ripe with possibility that remains unplucked.

That most people hadn't bothered to learn another language speaks to another modern attitude, even if it's understandable when you have the UT in your society. If there had been a guest character who was a linguistics expert, like Hoshi on 'Enterprise,' it could have been something deep to explore, an opportunity to show Starfleet skill and training at work, but the closest we get is in the extremely informal Briefing Room scene where Linus the Arcturan grunts something unintelligible out, then explains the UT doesn't always work for him. Why? That's nonsense - once a language is known by the computer it wouldn't make a mistake, surely? For that matter how does he know what the others heard? Yeah, it's 'DSC,' turn your brain and your expectations off, man. 'Star Trek' is so old, it needs to be more contemporary otherwise people can't relate, right? Thanks for that. And don't get me started on another pretentious title. A coin for the ferryman of the dead. I get it, but does it really have any meaning for the episode? And Charon is very easy to confuse with Cheron, which already has meanings in Trek lore. Then again they never bother to show the title so to them titles don't matter. Why do they hate Trek?

**